January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista overthrown by Fidel Castro.
January 3 - Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
February 3 - News of the February 2 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper becomes widely known. This date becomes known as 'The Day The Music Died'. Future country star Waylon Jennings was scheduled to be on the plane, but instead gave his seat up to the Big Bopper.
February 6 - At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
February 22 - Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
March 9 - The Barbie doll debuts
March - People's Republic of China invades Tibet.
April 25 - The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.
August 7 - Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
August 21 - Hawaii is admitted as the 50th U.S. state.
September 15 - Russian probe Luna 2 sends back first photos of the far side of Earth's Moon.
October 21 - In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
November 1 - Ice Hockey: After being struck in the face with a hockey puck, Montreal Canadiens goalie offered to return to play on the condition that he can wear his protective face mask. It was the first time such equipment was used in a regular NHL game.
November 19 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
December 1 - Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (this was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).
The neutrino is first experimentally detected, by Cowan and Reines.
TAT-2 cable goes into operation.

Significant Movies of 1959

Ben-Hur
The Diary of Anne Frank
Anatomy of a Murder
Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint

-Danny's Coffee Shops are renamed Dennys
-Pantyhose, which give women the look of stockings without garters, garter-belts, or corsets, are introduced
-The Nikon F35mm single-lens reflex camera is introduced by Nippon Kogaku K.K.
-On the Air! You'd find 3,287 AM radio, 578 FM radio and 509 TV stations
-Lady Chatterly's Lover banned by the U.S. Postal Service
-Swimmer Esther Williams gets her own Wheaties box
-'Think Small' campaign from Volkwagon. VW will sell 120,000 cars in the U.S. in 1959, four times the number sold in 1955
-Maxwell House inaugurates the 'Good to the last drop' ad campaign
-The BIC ballpoint pen is introduced to America
-One billionth can of SPAM sold
-Space monkeys Able and Baker boldly go where no monkey (or human) has gone before
-NASA picks the Mercury Astronauts, 7 guys with the 'right stuff'
-Aluminum beer can introduced by Coors of Golden, Colorado
-Alaska is admitted to statehood on Feb 3, and Hawaii on August 21
-The microchip is invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce of the U.S.
-The Guggenheim opens in New York City
-The Sound of Music staring Mary Martin opens on Broadway
-Metrecal is introduced by the 59-year-old Mead Johnson Company as a weight reducing aid
-Presbyterian church accepts women preachers
-Vince Lombardi signs on to coach Green Bay Packers
-Walt Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' is released
-Giants Stadium is renamed Candlestick Park
-Fidel Castro gets control of Cuba
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A Few 1959 Statistics

-America will import 430,808 passenger cars.
-There are 36,981 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 8 accidents resulting in 125 fatalities.
-Unemployment is 6.8%.
-U.S. Gross National Product is $503.5 billion.
-There is a 51.8% business failure rate.
-31.7% of all advertising dollars are spent on newspapers - 13.7% on TV.
-Americans will spend $1.2 billion on books in a year in which 14,876 new ones are published.
-The average American worker earns $91.53 a week.
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Fashion and Hair Styles

In women's fashion women wore a full knee-length skirt and there was a brief fling with the sack dress, which was much as it sounds, and expertly parodied on the 'I Love Lucy' show, the television hit of the decade. The bobbysoxers flourished for a brief time, characterized by a large collared blouse, poodle skirt, scarf-tied ponytail and saddle shoes. For the boys it was the James Dean and Marlon Brando look of rebels without causes and motorcycle gang members. In the more out of the way places, the trendy coffee shops, held morose Beatniks, all dressed in black, with matching berets, with an audible spritzing of 'man' and 'like' in every sentence. Hair was generally soft and curly, often short and imaginative. The oddball woman's cut of the decade was the poodle cut, most notably used by Lucille Ball, and for men it was the ducktail, with the hair combed back and a duck's butt made out of a center part. Men also had the crewcut and the flattop, both of which were inspired by the military and were eradicated by the British invasion of the sixties.